I’m a little behind on just about everything these days. Okay, I’m a whole LOT behind. I’d like to say that’s unusual, but it seems to be the usual instead. I just seem to have more to do than I can keep up with, but no way to cut back on what I’m doing just yet.

Plus we’ve been to West Virginia and back recently, and yesterday we just got back from a 4-hour trip to the Atlanta, Georgia, area so I could visit the Fibromyalgia & Chronic Fatigue Clinic near there. Mix in the fact we all have a summer cold that just won’t let go (the parrot has even taken to imitating us coughing, she’s heard it so much), andit’s just been crazy around here.

Anyway, moving on, I’d like to say THANKS to CeeCee at “My Little Bit Of Heaven” for giving me the Honest Scrap Award!

The idea of The Honest Scrap award is to:

“List 10 things about you that many people don’t know about, but are true.”

Hmmmmm, something that most people don’t know. . . well, here goes!

1. I used to like to cook. Now it’s just one more distraction, one more thing to have to worry about, while I’m trying to reach other goals.
2. I got what must have been a spider bite over 4 weeks ago, and it still isn’t totally healed up.
    
3. My grandfather wanted me to show horses, but I hated it. I loved working with horses, but I’m too introverted to enjoy being in front of people in a horse show. He finally declared I was “a better hand with horses than anyone he knew” but realized I wasn’t meant to be in the ring showing horses. My little sister took over that department.
4. While I was in high school, I worked two summers as a “recreation aide” at a home for the ‘developmentally disabled’.
5. I believe that becoming part of a step-family does not automatically generate real relatives. (Very short explanation why: I think you have to work at it and grow into it, and even then, you won’t always have the same relationship the strict legal outlook might say, especially when you haven’t grown up with said step-relatives.)
6. One of my favorite occupations as a kid was going off by myself and hunting fossils.
7. When I was a kid I fell onto our burn pile where there were some smoldering catalogs and ended up with 2nd and 3rd degree burns on the side of my right leg (long story how I managed that in the first place).
8. For several years I made machine-knitted neck scarves, toboggans, and Cabbage Patch Doll clothes for Santa’s Workshop.
9. I don’t play any card games except Uno. Period. (Another long story.)
10. I worked as a night supervisor at a small hospital to earn my PHT (Put HubbieThrough, in case you’re not familiar with that, as in working while putting first husband through college). Turns out it was a waste of time. . . (yep, another long story!)

Okay, that’s the first ten things I could think of.

As for the other guidelines for the Honest Scrap Award – if anyone reading this would like to jump in and put an Honest Scrap on their blog, I’ll be happy to link to you if you let me know!

Tags: award, Rural Writer

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A friend (Hi Joan!) sent me a link to this news story about a woman with 334 bunnies in her yard.  (How did they count them accurately I wonder??? )

Yep, in Rio Rancho, New Mexico, a certain Nancy Haseman was cited because the local ordinance only allows FIVE pets per household, and she, shall we say, somewhat exceeded it with her 334 bunnies hopping around in her yard.  (I’m thinking that isn’t all those bunnies are doing in her yard to multiply so rapidly – place must be pretty X-rated!)

If she could have kept her bunch of bunnies in her own yard, she might have got away with it, but a neighbor complained about the rabbits eating her garden.  Can you imagine having 334 rabbits in your garden?  Sounds like a plague of Biblical proportions!  I don’t think there’d be much left of any garden after that many rabbits chomped their way through.

I mean, just take a look at that picture!  It’s a visual aid to show you exactly what 334 bunny rabbits looks like.  That’s a whole lot of Hassenpfeffer hopping around in your back yard or garden!

Evidently this all started when her husband rescued a rabbit 12 years ago after a neighbor abandoned it, then the couple began rescuing more bunnies.  Though she says they ”kept the males separate from the females,” apparently the males hopped the fence and things got “out of control.”  (Talk about understatement!)

Well, you know the grass is always greener on the other side of the fence.  Guess the boys thought that wasn’t all that looked good on the other side of the fence.

Hassenpfeffer anyone?

Tags: rabbits

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I guess I’m like a reflective turtle this week, being a little on the meditative slow side.

We just got back from a trip to West Virginia and Ohio to visit family, and I’m tired. I’m also dealing with a lingering summer cold, so I’m not exactly feeling my best. So as I said, I’m moving a little slow.

To reflect on that, here’s a picture of the big turtle in our pond.

The water was so reflective it almost  looks like the turtle is on grass instead of water.

Yesterday I saw two smaller turtles on the log.  It’s a popular spot!

Tags: turtle

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Hummingbirds and butterflies are two of my favorite summer visitors.  That makes it double the pleasure, double the fun, when I see both at the same time.

Tags: butterfly, hummingbird, wildlife

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Yeah, I know.  It’s supposed to be “older AND wiser.”  There’s just one problem with that.  I’m older, but I don’t seem to be wiser.

Nope, this whole wiser thing doesn’t seem to be working out for me.  Maybe the rest of you are faring better.

Granted, I wouldn’t do today some of the things I might have done in my teenage years, when a person thinks they’re invincible and going to live forever.  But that still leaves a whole lot of questionable things that you’d think by now I’d know better, but somehow. . . I just don’t seem to.

I mean, did you ever buy something you think is just going to be absolutely great and it turns out to be a real dud?  It was advertised to do wonderful things that it just doesn’t come close to doing.  Now after all these years you’d think I’d be totally immune to advertising hype, but no, sometimes it seems I’m no wiser.

Or how about reading in your favorite magazine about the latest diet miracle?  It’s GUARANTEED to make you lose 10 pounds in one week.  I know better, I’m smarter than that, but… what if it’s true???

Or I try growing a certain kind of plant that really doesn’t do well in our climate, but I just know that this time it’s going to work… wrong again!

Or here’s one of my downfalls… I open my mouth and tell things that I’d be better off keeping my mouth shut and not mentioning.  I just don’t always think things through and consider what the ramifications might be.

I get interested in a book or movie or something and stay up way later than I should.  I know I need rest, but my brain won’t shut down.  I know I should take my supplements, but I’m bad about forgetting them.  I eat something I know I shouldn’t; it won’t make me sick this time.  Wrong, wrong, wrong!

You get the picture.

So I do all these things that by now you’d figure I’d be smart enough to know NOT to do, or don’t do things that I SHOULD do.

See, I’m older, but not wiser.  Bummer.

Tags: Rural Writer

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Friday The Farmer came in and told me he saw a guinea with one lone keet.  I went out looking for it, and discovered there was not just one, but TWELVE little keets running around!

The only problem was getting a picture.  The Mama and her helper had them out in the back pasture, and trying to see all those little keets in the taller grass was hard!

Actually, as little as they are when they first hatch out, the grass doesn’t have to be very tall to hide them.  I know there was more than one keet in that picture, but I could only see the one.

You can see them a little better in this picture. . .

. . . But they still blend in a lot, and are nestled down in the grass.

A couple days later I got a chance for a better picture, when they were out in the llama pen.

As you can see, there are an even dozen.

Mama Guinea called to them, so they got all bunched up, then went traipsing off towards her.

Once they got there, she sat down and fluffed her feathers so they could all get underneath her.

Already, more than half of them had scooted under her.

It doesn’t take long until they all have disappeared, although the last one seemed to have a little trouble finding space.

All twelve managed to huddle under the Mama Guinea, however.

They’ll stay under there safe and sound until Mama decides it’s time to forage for food again!

Tags: guineas

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Sometimes you need more than just an edge.  Sometimes what you need is a whole lot of space!

Take for instance this futile attempt by some birds to build a nest on our front porch.

I guess they tried and tried, but couldn’t get a nest started on such a skinny bit of an edge.   Maybe they thought because some other birds had done it successfully -

- that they could too.  In fact, the first set of birds have a second set of babies in this nest now.

Unfortunately for the bad nest builders (and me!), they didn’t take into account the other birds had a bit more edge to work with in that corner.

Now I get to clean up  the mess they left behind from their sorry attempt at nest building.  I sure hope they did a better job the next place they tried or there aren’t going to be any babies from that couple of birds.

Come to think of it, maybe that would be just as well.

Tags: bird

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